Are you ready for a disgusting fact:  Most doctors and nurses—highly trained and respected professionals—wash their hands less than half as often as they’re supposed to when they’re working with patients (Gawande, 2007).

Stew in that for a minute. 

Imagine the doctor caring for your mother in Intensive Care. 

There is better than a 1 in 2 chance that he just finished checking an open sore or changing a filthy bandage on a patient down the hall and has stopped in quickly to check on Mom without bothering to wash his hands.

Think about the nurse who has been so wonderful for the past few weeks, gently washing your mother’s face with cool water to lower her temperature.

There’s better than a 1 in 2 chance that she just finished doing the same with a patient who has pneumonia two rooms over and hasn't made it to a sink yet.

Considering that bacteria counts on the average hand range from 5,000 to 5 MILLION parts per square centimeter, those careless hand washing practices aren’t simply irresponsible—they can be downright deadly, passing infections around to uninfected people at alarming rates.

What’s really crazy is that hospitals are CONSTANTLY working to improve hand washing practices in their facilities. 

Many have gone as far as to install alcohol rinses and gels in every room, knowing that alcohol rinses are more effective and efficient than traditional scrubbing with soap and water.

Most monitor hand washing practices, posting results and reminders on almost every surface in every unit across their hospitals.

Some go as far as to hire staffers whose sole job is to make unannounced visits to individual floors in an attempt to hold doctors and nurses accountable for their choices when it comes to hand cleanliness. 

But few have ever bothered to ask doctors or nurses why they’re so careless about such a simple and effective practice.

That’s exactly, however, what industrial engineer Peter Perreiah did when he was put in charge of a small, 40-bed surgical unit at one of Pittsburgh’s veterans hospitals. “Peter didn’t ask, ‘Why don’t you wash your hands’,” one doctor reported, “He asked, ‘Why can’t you?”  (Gawande, 2007, Kindle Location 308-313).

The answer—which will come as no surprise to classroom teachers and school leaders—was time. 

As it turns out, doctors and nurses are pretty busy people. 

Often in charge of monitoring the progress of dozens of patients on several different floors of large hospitals, just making rounds in a timely fashion can be a challenge.

Add to that challenge the almost constant struggle to find needed examination supplies—gauze, tape, gowns, gloves, medical tools—in each of the dozens of rooms that they are responsible for visiting, and it is easier to understand how doctors and nurses were skipping a hygienic step that should never be skipped.

So Perreiah—in true engineer fashion—set out to make changes that would address each of the concerns that his doctors and nurses had identified as time sinks preventing them from consistently maintaining the highest hygienic standards. 

As Atul Gawande explains in his 2007 book Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance:

(Perreiah) came up with a just-in-time supply system that kept not only gowns and gloves at the bedside but also gauze and tape and other things the staff needed, so they didn’t have to go back and forth out of the room to search for them.

Rather than make everyone clean their stethoscopes, notorious carriers of infection, between patients, he arranged for each patient room to have a designated stethoscope on the wall…

He made each hospital room work more like an operating room, in other words. 

(Kindle Location 308-317)

Perreiah’s changes had remarkable results.  Within one year, infection rates for MRSA—the contagious bacterial infection most likely to lead to death in hospitals—fell almost 90% in his ward (Gawande, 2007).

The story doesn’t have a happy ending, however. 

Despite showing that infection rates could be successfully addressed by making simple changes to save doctors and nurses time, Perreiah’s changes failed to take hold in other wards and on other floors in the same hospital. 

Even worse, when Perreiah left his original unit two years after beginning his experiment in hand washing, performance took a nosedive. 

Turns out that Perreiah was just as important to the improvements in hygiene on his unit as the changes that he had made—and once he’d left, the commitment to the changes wavered.

Interesting stuff, isn’t it? 

And chock-a-block FULL of lessons for school leaders attempting to implement professional learning communities.

Here’s two:

Principals that are successfully STRUCTURING PLCs spend time listening to their classroom teachers about the challenges of implementing new processes and practices.

I’ve been around the PLC movement long enough that I’ve seen PLC implementation done wrong far more often than I’ve seen it done right.

And the failure that I see the most frequently is school leaders who mandate new practices from the principal’s office—collaborative meetings, SMART goal writing, data collection and analysis, identifying essential objectives—without ever listening to their teachers.

The result:  Overwhelmed teachers buried under new behaviors that they are poorly prepared to implement.

When they raise concerns, however, their painted as whiners or resisters or fundamentalists.  Heck—popular thinkers go as far as to argue that they should be thrown off the collective bus when they don’t comply with school directives.

That kind of stubborn refusal to listen to practitioners has gotten hospitals nowhere, hasn’t it?

With average rates of hand washing compliance hovering around 70 percent—even as hospitals hire compliance experts to make “hand washing interventions” on every floor—inadvertent infections are appallingly common.

Perreiah’s approach was different, though.  Instead of falling into the “leadership by harangue,” approach so common in hospitals he took the time to learn from practitioners—and then aggressively attacked the implementation challenges that they identified.

And that’s what YOU should be doing, too. 

Trust the knowledge and opinions of your practitioners because that knowledge is the closest reflection of the current reality in your building that you have.

And then make it your job to aggressively attack—rather than openly doubt or willingly ignore—the PLC implementation challenges that they identify.

THAT’s what leadership REALLY looks like in action.

Principals that are successfully SUSTAINING PLCs develop organizational leadership skills within their faculties.

The story of Perreiah’s success is really nothing more than a story of failure, isn’t it?  After all, the progress made on his original unit wasn’t sustained. 

Sure, reducing infection rates by 90 percent for two years is pretty darn admirable work—but if the change can’t outlive the leader, was it really a change at all?

Sadly, successful PLCs often suffer from the same kinds of stumbles when they lose their leaders—and that’s because the leaders of PLCs generally do a poor job planning for their own departures.

How can you avoid making the same mistake?

The most important step is to start to distribute leadership from the day that you get hired.  Find teacher leaders and cultivate them. 

Build their knowledge around leadership and PLC concepts.  Put them in charge of important committees.  Allow them to make key decisions—even when you aren’t completely sold on the decisions that they are invested in.

Ask them to act like leaders. 

Have them defend the rationale for choices that they believe in based on your school’s mission and vision. Encourage them to be influencers—developing relationships that they can use to drive change later.

And then document EVERYTHING that your faculty believes in.

Tie your building’s choices to detailed rationales that can be shared with new principals when they replace you.  Make time to sit down with those principals—as well as the influential teachers on your building—early in their tenure.

By engaging in these practices—essentially crafting a detailed exit strategy from day one—you can help to ensure that the changes in your building outlive you.

Does any of this make sense?  Can you think of any other lessons that we can learn from the story of dirty hands in hospitals?

What barriers to you think school leaders face when trying to structure and/or sustain PLC initiatives? 

How are you—or your principals—successfully addressing those barriers?

 

_______________________________

Work Cited:

Gawande, A. (2007). Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance. New York, NY: Metropolitan Books.

Blogger's Note:  I'm in the middle of final revisions on my third book right now and I'm slammed with writing!  That means getting new content here on the Radical today proved to be too much for me.  As a result, I'm posting a column I wrote several years ago for the Wake County website.

What's frustrating is that I feel no different about education's glass ceiling today than I did when this piece was originally written. 

I hope you enjoy this.....It kind of makes me sad.

Not long ago, I had a reunion with one of my favorite students. Michael was only 10 when I met him as a fifth grader in one of my first classes as a teacher. He was someone that I hit it off with instantly, and I grew to know him quite well. Michael is now on the edge of graduating from college himself, and we got together to catch up.

As our conversation drifted towards careers, Michael surprised me by asking, "When are you moving out of middle school? You could teach somewhere else easily. Maybe you could go to a high school or college?"

"I'm not," I said. "I really love my sixth graders."

"But is that what you want to be doing when you're 50?" he pressed, "Don't you think it would be weird to still be just a teacher when you're 50?"

And for the first time in my career, I struggled to answer.

"Teaching is what I do," was my first reaction. "I love my students, and knowing that I'm making a difference in their lives drives me."

I've even taken steps to make staying in the classroom a better financial decision. Several years ago, I earned National Board Certification, which carries a significant pay raise in our state. I then added a Masters degree, further increasing my pay. Combined, National Board Certification and a Masters degree has almost made staying in the classroom affordable.

But is being "just a teacher" enough? Is it what I want to be doing when I'm 50?

Honestly, the answer is, "I'm just not sure anymore," and that saddens me.

It's not that I'm "burned out," tired by the daily demands of meeting the needs of middle schoolers. In fact, I still thrive on my interactions with my students. It's also not that I feel "disrespected" by society as a whole. While the criticisms of public schooling can be trying, I know that I have been successful within my school and community.

What has me doubting my decision to finish my career in the classroom is that despite great successes, I've recognized that I am still "just a teacher" in the eyes of most people.

My day-to-day responsibilities haven't changed in 17 years, and are no different than the responsibilities of the first year teachers in my building. While I am currently working for an administrative team that believes in empowering teachers, I still find myself wanting more input in conversations related to education at all levels.

Teaching is truly a "flat profession."

There are no real opportunities for teachers to "advance" and remain classroom teachers at the same time. To get the additional influence that I want, I'm going to have to leave my classroom for a career in school administration or educational policy—and lose my connection with my students.

That is incredibly frustrating.

It is time to break education's "glass ceiling" and to stratify teaching.  If we hope to retain our most accomplished teachers, we must work to create school-level leadership positions for teachers who want to stay in the classroom and advance as well.

There are successful stratification models being tried across the country, and several have been proposed here in our state. All have the potential to inspire teachers looking for opportunities to grow professionally.

But these initial efforts are slow to develop and to be embraced by a society that largely still views teaching as something slightly less than professional work. Until these perceptions change, teachers will continue to be forced to make the difficult decision to remain "just a teacher" or leave the part of the profession that they love the most.

As for me, what will I be doing when I'm 50?

I don't know. I haven't decided yet.

Memo

To:  NBC, Education Nation, Oprah, Michelle Rhee, Arne Duncan, and Bill Gates

From: A classroom teacher.

CC: Anyone who will listen—which is likely to be a short list.

Date: September 25, 2010

RE: Your Stranglehold on American Education

______________________________________________

The defining moment in my 17-year teaching career—a moment I’ve never chosen to write about because it was so hurtful—took place in the conference room of an ineffective principal who had decided to reprimand me. 

While there were lots of tense moments between us, the tipping point came when she’d hired extra gym teachers to get the numbers in our PE classes down to a more manageable size.  The result:  I was trying to teach 36-38 kids—dozens with special education needs—in my language arts classes. 

I pushed back.  She got pissed.  I was written up. 

In the course of our meeting, I asked for the logic behind placing 38 kids in my language arts classroom when there were only 18-20 in most of our gym classes.  Her response:

“Bill, you’re just a teacher.  You don’t see the bigger picture.  If you need more desks, let me know.”

I vowed, then and there, to NEVER let her accusation that I couldn’t possibly understand the ‘bigger picture’ because I’m ‘just a classroom teacher’—an accusation that you seem to share, considering your very public choices to leave teachers out of the important conversations you’ve started on education—to be true. 

I promised myself that I’d study damn near everything there was to know about education beyond the classroom.

And I have. 

Here’s a list of just a few of my experiences:

• I studied the impact that teacher working conditions have on student learning, first with the Center for Teaching Quality (CTQ) and then with the New Teacher Center.
• In the course of that project, I worked with CTQ to research and develop a series of action steps that teachers, principals, policymakers, and community leaders could take to improve school leadership and professional development.
• I’ve moderated conversations between our state’s National Board Certified Teachers on the kinds of incentives that would attract teachers to high needs schools.
• I’ve co-authored a policy document with Barnett Berry—CTQ founder—on the challenges of recruiting teachers to high needs schools. 
• I’ve spoken on Capitol Hill alongside Linda Darling-Hammond on the challenges of recruiting teachers to high needs schools. 
• As a part of a team of teachers assembled by CTQ, I’ve studied the issue of redesigning professional compensation for teachers, learning from the likes of Eric Hanushek and Brad Jupp.
• I coauthored a policy document with that team of teachers offering best strategies built from research and our knowledge of schools for redesigning teacher compensation. 

Convinced that I’m credible yet? 

Remember—I haven’t even mentioned my classroom accomplishments.  I’ve been certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, I’ve written two books—one on restructuring schools as professional learning communities and one on teaching for tomorrow—and I’ve presented at the state and national level dozens of times.

Oh yeah, and remember that I AM still ‘just a teacher.’ 

That means I can translate the learning I’m doing about ‘the bigger picture’ back to my school and my classroom, something that NONE of your ‘educational experts’—including that guy from Netflix—can do.

In the course of all of this work, I’ve learned a ton of lessons about your beloved “bigger picture.” 

They include:

Publicly humiliating schools and teachers serving high needs communities is failed policy:  While I’m ashamed to admit it, I’ve purposely avoided working in schools of poverty because of the never-ending criticism they receive in the press and the never-ending pressure they’re under as a result of ignorant state and federal policies.

That means you should be ashamed of your efforts to encourage and promote people and/or programs that believe public ridicule is an effective reform strategy because you’re only driving good teachers away from the students who need them the most.

 

Tying individual teachers to test scores is failed policy:  I’ve spent the better part of my teaching career in the reading and writing classroom—a logical choice considering that I’m a published writer, don’t you think? 

But those years—particularly since y’all decided that tying teachers to test scores made sense—have left me bitter and angry at my colleagues in untested subjects who don’t equally share the burden of your coercive accountability efforts. 

They’ve also forced me to question and to walk away from practices that I know are responsible in an effort to make sure that my students’ test scores ‘make the grade.’

Heck, I’ve even left the tested subjects this year, choosing to teach science for the simple reason is that it isn’t tested.

That means you should be ashamed of your efforts to put test scores first in your work to reform America’s schools. 

Doing so has not only dumbed down the instruction that our students are receiving, it’s chasing good teachers from the classrooms where you need them the most. 

 

Using compensation as a cudgel is failed policy:  Like most of the people drawn to our nation’s classrooms, I’ve never been too motivated by money.  Instead, I’m drawn to the classroom out of a commitment to serve. 

And while I think I should be paid a professional wage for the professional work that I do, the cockamamie merit pay programs that you continually promote turn my stomach. 

You see, the best work that I’ve ever done has been when I reflect with a team of colleagues who are equally passionate about improving their practice.  That collaboration enriches me and exposes me to ideas that I may have never considered on my own.  

That means you should be ashamed of your efforts to pit teachers against one another in some sort of sick competition to be compensated fairly. 

Not only are such plans cop outs—giving you the chance to ignore the larger issue that our nation doesn’t compensate ANY teachers fairly—they serve as a disincentive to the kind of collective investigation necessary for spreading effective practices across buildings and communities. 

Do you REALLY think I’m going to share what I know with those I’m competing against for your pot of performance cash?

Mostly what I’ve learned, though, is that ‘bigger pictures’ are really nothing more than tools used by those in power to exclude those perceived as weak from important conversations. 

You don’t want me involved in your television programming or the most important panels of your national summits because you know that I’d strip the thin varnish off of the truth that you’ve been hiding for almost a decade: 

Educational reforms never work in America because they’re not designed by practicing educators.

Instead, you’re content to patronize the American schoolteacher.  You’ll celebrate the mythology well enough—praising the matronly, apple-wielding women who you learned from—and then ignore the reality that your unwillingness to believe that we might just know something about how to save our schools has destroyed any chance that our schools will be saved.

Where does that leave us?

You’ll keep blowing smoke up each other’s skirts—over power lunches in important places like DC, Chicago and New York, mind you—about how brilliant you are while overlooking the fact that NOTHING YOU’VE DONE HAS WORKED.

I’ll keep hating you for it.

And our kids will keep falling farther behind.

Geez...It's a busy time up in here!

Not only are we in the middle of preparing for what promises to be a great conversation on teaching for tomorrow with digital change experts Adam Garry and Meg Ormiston, but Scott McLeod----Educational Leadership professor extraordinaire and the mind behind the Dangerously Irrelevant blog---has asked me to write a guest post in early September. 

Here's what he asked:

I was wondering if each of you would be up to doing a guest post at Dangerously Irrelevant. The theme for the 7 days will be: What do teachers need from administrators?

Being as how we're Teacher Leader fans over here at the Radical, I figured I'd put a bit of a twist on Scott's question.  My version will be:

What do Teacher Leaders Need from Administrators?

And being as how we're all about audience participation over here at the Radical, I want your help in crafting my entry for Scott's blog!  To share your thinking with Scott's audience---a group that includes tons of principals, by the way---consider:

Crafting a one or two paragraph response to my question and posting it as a blog comment:  I've already shared a sample in the comment section if you're not sure what your entry should look like.  Be sure to share as much contact information as you're comfortable with, too, so I can give credit to you in my final post. 

and/or

Answering this short survey about what teacher leaders need from administrators:  Scott loves to have charts and graphs in posts over at his blog, so I'll use the data from this survey to whip up a chart to include in our final piece. 

Thanks in advance for participating, huh?  This one's important.  Helping principals to understand just who we are and how we work will advance teacher leadership a ton!

As you may have guessed from my posts here on the Radical, I’ve spent the better part of the past two months presenting on professional learning communities for Solution Tree. 

The work has been interesting simply because it’s allowed me to get a sense for the kinds of issues that schools are facing as they work to restructure as collaborative groups. 

One of the questions that is asked time and again in my sessions is, “If we’re classroom teachers working in a building with a principal who is resistant to collaboration—or who just doesn’t get it—what can we do to get the ball rolling in the right direction?”

Interesting question, isn’t it?  And a sad one at that! 

It’s hard to believe that there are still principals who aren’t convinced that colleagues working together are more effective than colleagues working in isolation.  I mean the research base IS pretty clear—and it’s supported by darn near every educational heavyweight in the industry today.

That being said, I’m a realist.  I get that some principals are going to be more motivated by—and effective at leading—collaborative communities than others. 

So what can you do if you’re stuck in a building with a leader struggling to get his or her head wrapped around the important role that collaboration can play in school improvement?

Here are two suggestions:

Work within your own sphere of influence 

Teachers often burn themselves out quickly when working to affect change at the building level because they try to tackle projects and have influence in places where they have no organizational power.

Need an example? 

Most of the time, we have no control over the master schedule in our buildings.  It’s just not an area that we can make changes on our own.  But changing the master schedule has great potential for improving professional learning communities, so teachers interested in seeing PLCs work will often feel incredibly passionate about seeing their master schedules changed. 

Sadly, that’s a recipe for professional frustration—especially in a building where you’re questioning your leadership. 

Instead, try tackling tasks that do fall within your sphere of influence.  While you may not be able to change your master schedule, I’ll bet that you can use the time on your learning team creatively to provide enrichment and remediation to your students.

It might require convincing your peers to buy into something new, but that’s a lot more likely than trying to convince your building principal to make changes to the master schedule.

Not only will you be happier if you work within your sphere of influence, you’ll be more successful—and nothing is more convincing to school leaders than success!

As your learning team starts to produce results that are unmatched by the peers in your building working traditionally, I’ll bet cash that your principal will take notice and start asking questions. 

Develop positive relationships with your bossman 

Here’s an uncomfortable truth for you:  As much as we like to talk about teacher leadership as a force for change in education, it just isn’t true.  Teachers today have no more organizational power than teachers from previous generations.

We don’t control budgets.  We don’t set final directions.  We don’t make choices that are implemented at the school level.  We can’t evaluate our peers or hold them to any standards of performance.  We don’t choose professional development.

Discouraging, isn’t it?  Especially if you’re motivated to see change happen across an entire building instead of just your team! 

After all, effective PLC implementation DOES require new directions.  It DOES require new forms of professional development.  We DO have to spend money differently and hold teachers to new standards.  Without new organizational choices, new organizational directions are impossible—and we have no control over organizational choices.

Which is where influence by proximity comes in. 

Think for a second about the people who change your principal’s mind.  What do they all share in common? 

Right:  They seem to spend tons of time with the principal, don’t they.  You see them hanging out in the principal’s office when you walk by.  You see them chatting the boss up in the lunchroom or at bus duty.  They have coffee together every day once the kids are gone. 

Maybe they’ve got it easy because they’re not with students all day long.  Just stopping by the principal’s office to build relationships through formal and informal interactions IS pretty hard, after all, when you’re locked in a classroom with 12 year olds from the morning bell until recess starts. 

But the fact of the matter is THEY’RE influential because THEY’RE spending time with the boss. 

That’s influence by proximity—and it’s the only way that teachers can have any kind of juice in a schoolhouse.  While we can’t make decisions, we can have good relationships with those who DO make decisions—which means that our ideas are likely to seep into the school culture.

Sounds a lot like sucking up, doesn’t it? 

That’s because it IS a form of sucking up! 

Need a more professional word for it?  Call it “ingratiating yourself with your superior.”

But whatever you call it, if you want to have influence over the direction of your building, you’ve got to start to develop your relationship with your principal. 

So how do you do that? 

Let me get all Dr. Phil on ya’ for  a minute: Developing relationships with coworkers and bosses depends on a balance between personal and professional interactions. 

Show your principal that you appreciate the work that they’re doing.  Compliment freely when things go right.  Ask about their children or grandchildren.  Share stories about your children or grandchildren. 

Smile once in awhile! 

As your relationship grows, start pushing a bit.  Share articles with him/her on PLC concepts.  Let them see the new materials that you’re creating to structure the work of your team. 

Point them towards resources and books that you think might be helpful.  Find videos of PLC presenters talking about concepts that your school is wrestling with.

Sounds like a lot of work, doesn’t it? 

That’s because it IS a lot of work—and if you don’t like it or don’t have the time for it, quit your whining about wanting to have influence and move on already!

The fact of the matter is we choose how much time and energy we want to invest in our relationships with our principals and if we want to be influential, we need to make a conscious commitment to invest time and energy into the development of our bosses. 

Any of this make sense to you?  I guess what I’m trying to say is that if you’re working for a principal who is struggling with the PLC picture, there ARE steps that you can take to drive change in your school. 

Those steps, though, have to be taken carefully.  The ‘bull-in-a-china-shop” approach is rarely effective.